Sunday, March 25

1:00pm

Narrated by an unnamed woman and opening on an unspecified island, Tamirat’s first novel is a haunting investigation of identity and displacement. Newly arrived at a utopian commune that’s falling short of the mark, the narrator and her father keep to themselves, still processing the events that …

Narrated by an unnamed woman and opening on an unspecified island, Tamirat’s first novel is a haunting investigation of identity and displacement. Newly arrived at a utopian commune that’s falling short of the mark, the narrator and her father keep to themselves, still processing the events that drove them from Boston. The two had been similarly isolated there, near but not part of the city’s Ethiopian community, until the narrator met Ayale. Working in a parking lot but dreaming—and scheming—for much more, the charismatic and manipulative Ayale changed the narrator’s life irrevocably.

Set in Trenton, Koelb’s electrifying fiction debut doesn’t just explore the limits of self-invention—it pushes them with everything it’s got. The novel opens in 1946. Abe Kunstler has just returned home from the service to find that his wife, newly empowered by her wartime factory work, is unwilling to resume the old gender roles. She kills him, assumes his identity, finds a job, woos a woman, and lives happily as a man until the early 1970s when the façade of his life, like the former industrial city itself, begins to crumble.

Sunday, March 25

5:00pm

Nell Scovell - Just the Funny Parts...and a Few Hard Truths about Sneaking Into the Hollywood Boys' Club — in conversation with Alexandra Petri

With more than thirty years of experience as a writer, producer, and director, Scovell knows how the entertainment industry works. She came to Hollywood as a bookish New Englander and worked her way up from a low-level writer for Newhart to a major contributor to shows including The Simpsons, Late…

With more than thirty years of experience as a writer, producer, and director, Scovell knows how the entertainment industry works. She came to Hollywood as a bookish New Englander and worked her way up from a low-level writer for Newhart to a major contributor to shows including The Simpsons, Late Night with David Letterman, Murphy Brown, and NCIS and on to creator of the series Sabrina the Teenage Witch. While her roles have mainly been behind the scenes, Scovell has had several moments in the limelight. In 2009 she spoke out about gender bias on late-night TV writing staffs, and later she collaborated with Sheryl Sandberg on Lean In. In both cases Scovell helped spark a debate about diversity in a male-dominated work environment that her candid, wise, and very funny memoir continues. Scovell will be in conversation with Alexandra Petri, Washington Post columnist.

Monday, March 26

7:00pm

Steve Kistulentz - Panorama — at Politics and Prose at The Wharf

When a passenger jet crashes in Dallas on New Year’s Day, it ends the lives of all on board, but starts a widening spiral of responses among people both closely and tangentially connected to the tragedy. In a series of pitch-perfect character studies Kistulentz, an award-winning poet here making his…

When a passenger jet crashes in Dallas on New Year’s Day, it ends the lives of all on board, but starts a widening spiral of responses among people both closely and tangentially connected to the tragedy. In a series of pitch-perfect character studies Kistulentz, an award-winning poet here making his fiction debut, traces the impact of the accident on bereaved relatives as well as airport personnel and casual observers, composing a rich and insightful mosaic on loss and resilience.

Politics and Prose at The Wharf 70 District Square SW Washington DC 20024

Monday, March 26

7:00pm

Morris’s dynamic global history of the women’s movement starts with the 1966 founding of the National Organization for Women and covers pivotal events through the end of the twentieth century. These were decades that saw women and women’s issues figure prominently in political campaigns and …

Morris’s dynamic global history of the women’s movement starts with the 1966 founding of the National Organization for Women and covers pivotal events through the end of the twentieth century. These were decades that saw women and women’s issues figure prominently in political campaigns and demonstrations, such as protests for reproductive rights and marches to “take back the night.” They also marked the founding of women’s publishing houses, saw groundbreaking publications like Ms. and Our Bodies Ourselves, and ushered in changes in attitudes toward women’s work and social roles. As the 200 illustrations show, 20th-century feminism was a diverse movement, embracing women of all races, ages, and backgrounds. Morris, a women’s history professor at Georgetown and George Washington Universities, has interviewed a wide range of women who participated in the movement and many tell their stories here for the first time.

Tuesday, March 27

7:00pm

Jonathan Miles - Anatomy of a Miracle & Jennifer Clement - Gun Love — at Politics and Prose at The Wharf

Private First Class Cameron Harris served in Afghanistan and returned to his Biloxi home a paraplegic. After being physically and emotionally stuck there for four years, one day he simply stands up: healed. Suddenly he’s the center of attention. Everyone from reality TV directors to local politicians…

Private First Class Cameron Harris served in Afghanistan and returned to his Biloxi home a paraplegic. After being physically and emotionally stuck there for four years, one day he simply stands up: healed. Suddenly he’s the center of attention. Everyone from reality TV directors to local politicians to the Vatican wants something from him. As he struggles with the sudden celebrity, he wonders if the miracle—if that’s what it was—obligates him to serve a higher calling. Can’t he just live his life? In his engaging third novel, Miles, the author of Dear American Airlines and Want Not, provides plenty of comic and absurd moments as he explores serious questions of faith and fame.

Clement’s fourth novel is a powerful evocation of America’s love affair with guns, told through the unconventional lives of a mother and daughter. Now a young woman, Pearl more or less grew up in a ’94 Mercury, the car her mother used to drive away from one life in search of another when Pearl was an infant. The two got as far as Florida, and Pearl has grown up in the thick of gun country. Everyone she knows has guns, and soon her mother falls for Eli Redmond, a staunch gun devotee and also a man with a knack for finding trouble. As tragedy inevitably ensues, Clement, president of PEN International, looks squarely at the human cost of the right to bear arms.

Politics and Prose at The Wharf 70 District Square SW Washington DC 20024

Tuesday, March 27

7:00pm

Star journalists Michael Isikoff and David Corn have made headlines with their reports on the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia—and made it into Rep. Nunes’ memo on surveillance to the House Intelligence Committee. In Russian Roulette, they present the incredible account of how Moscow hacked our …

Star journalists Michael Isikoff and David Corn have made headlines with their reports on the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia—and made it into Rep. Nunes’ memo on surveillance to the House Intelligence Committee. In Russian Roulette, they present the incredible account of how Moscow hacked our democracy in a covert attempt to help Donald Trump win the presidency. As in their bestselling Hubris, which uncovered the truth of the Iraq War, Isikoff and Corn expose what amounts to a cyber Watergate.

1 Ticket: $10

1 Book and 1 Ticket: $30; $28 for members

1 Book and 2 Tickets: $40; $38 for members

All books and tickets will be available at will call at 6 p.m. the evening of the event. Politics and Prose will not have books or tickets available for pick up prior to the evening of the event.

Tuesday, March 27

7:00pm

Leonard Mlodinow - Elastic: Flexible Thinking in a Time of Change — in conversation with Eliza Barclay

In accessible and engaging books of popular science such as The Drunkard’s Walk and Subliminal, Mlodinow, trained as a theoretical physicist, focused on the everyday practical realities of things we only marginally control, such as chance and subconscious choice. In his new book he looks at another…

In accessible and engaging books of popular science such as The Drunkard’s Walk and Subliminal, Mlodinow, trained as a theoretical physicist, focused on the everyday practical realities of things we only marginally control, such as chance and subconscious choice. In his new book he looks at another inescapable feature of today’s world: change. Drawing on cutting-edge research in neuroscience and psychology, Mlodinow shows how the human brain has evolved with an exquisite elasticity that enables us to adapt to change, even the constant and increasingly fast barrage of changes we face now. Mlodinow complements his technical explanations of these human cognitive skills with a survey of historical triumphs of elastic thinking and gives tips on how we can use our elasticity to fulfill goals and improve our lives.

Mlodinow will be in conversation with Eliza Barclay, who oversees Vox.com's health, science, energy, and environment coverage.

Wednesday, March 28

7:00pm

Alan Hollinghurst - The Sparsholt Affair

Hollinghurst’s sixth novel is an incisive portrait of Britain from the 1940s to the present. Tracing the lives and loves of several generations of the upper-crust Sparsholt family, the narrative chronicles the period’s various literary and artistic movements, changing attitudes to class, and, most …

Hollinghurst’s sixth novel is an incisive portrait of Britain from the 1940s to the present. Tracing the lives and loves of several generations of the upper-crust Sparsholt family, the narrative chronicles the period’s various literary and artistic movements, changing attitudes to class, and, most importantly, the transition from closeted gay life to social acceptance of homosexuality after the passage of the 1967 Sexual Offenses Act. As he did in The Stranger’s Child and his Man Booker Award-winning The Line of Beauty, Hollinghurst brilliantly depicts the emotional and physical nuances of complex relationships while also illuminating the wider socio-historical currents that help shape his characters’ lives.

Wednesday, March 28

7:00pm

Sarah B. Snyder - From Selma to Moscow: How Human Rights Activists Transformed U.S. Foreign Policy — at Politics and Prose at The Wharf

Wednesday, March 28, 7 p.m. to 8 p.m.
From Selma to Moscow: How Human Rights Activists Transformed U.S. Foreign Policy
$30
Snyder’s ground-breaking study of 1960s civil rights activism argues that the movement had as great an impact on the nation’s foreign policy as it did on domestic issues. …

Wednesday, March 28, 7 p.m. to 8 p.m.

From Selma to Moscow: How Human Rights Activists Transformed U.S. Foreign Policy

$30

Snyder’s ground-breaking study of 1960s civil rights activism argues that the movement had as great an impact on the nation’s foreign policy as it did on domestic issues. Snyder, who teaches at American University’s School of International Service, shows that as Americans became more sensitized to questions of social justice in this country, they began to demand it for people in other countries, too. Looking specifically at how Americans responded to repression in the Soviet Union, racial discrimination in Southern Rhodesia, and authoritarianism in South Korea, Snyder traces a direct line from 1960s social movements to agitation that resulted in legislation to curb military and economic assistance to repressive governments, created institutions to monitor human rights around the world, and enshrined human rights in U.S. foreign-policy making.

Politics and Prose at The Wharf 70 District Square SW Washington DC 20024

Thursday, March 29

7:00pm

Jennifer Palmieri - Dear Madam President: An Open Letter to the Women Who Will Run the World — at Politics and Prose at The Wharf

Palmieri, the Director of Communications for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, has no doubt that there will be a woman president, and her book is a letter to her—and to all women aspiring to lead. Drawing on her experiences in the campaign as well as on what she learned as White House …

Palmieri, the Director of Communications for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, has no doubt that there will be a woman president, and her book is a letter to her—and to all women aspiring to lead. Drawing on her experiences in the campaign as well as on what she learned as White House Communications Director for President Obama, Palmieri reimagines leadership roles using women, not men, as the models, and she shows women in all fields how they can learn from 2016 to think independently and take control over their lives, their workplaces, and their country. Inspiring and, more important, practical, Palmieri’s message uses the disappointment of 2016 as route to empowerment.

Thursday, March 29

7:00pm

Mohsin Hamid - Exit West — at Sidwell Friends Meeting House

Mohsin Hamid’s Exit West was one of the biggest novels of 2017. An international bestseller, it was shortlisted for the Man Booker and Kirkus Prize and named one of the 10 best books of the year by The New York Times, NPR, and The Guardian—and no wonder. Exit West is at once an affecting love story,…

Mohsin Hamid’s Exit West was one of the biggest novels of 2017. An international bestseller, it was shortlisted for the Man Booker and Kirkus Prize and named one of the 10 best books of the year by The New York Times, NPR, and The Guardian—and no wonder. Exit West is at once an affecting love story, a work of inventive literary fantasy, and a compelling reflection on war, displacement, and what it means to leave the only country you know. The New Yorker wrote that the novel “feels immediately canonical, so firm and unerring is Hamid’s understanding of our time and its most pressing questions.”

Hamid will be in conversation with Steve Inskeep, host of NPR's Morning Edition, as well as NPR's morning news podcast Up First.